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Rob Israch brings over 15 years of marketing experience to Tipalti. Most recently, Rob served as VP, Global Marketing Programs at NetSuite where he led global branding, demand generation, and international marketing over the past 8 years, helping to guide the company through 10X+ revenue growth, from private company through IPO to cloud ERP market leader. Previously, Rob held a variety of marketing management roles at Intuit and GE. Rob earned a Marketing degree at University of Florida, Warrington College of Business.

According to new data, 70 percent of publishers and affiliates are likely to leave a network because of a payment issue. So, what can ad networks do to improve publisher satisfaction? Rob Israch, CMO of Tipalti, shares his thoughts.

According to new data, 70 percent of publishers and affiliates are likely to leave a network because of a payment issue. So what can ad networks do to improve publisher satisfaction?

70 percent. That’s the likelihood of a publisher leaving a network because of a payment issue.

Not even industry giants, Google, Facebook, and Amazon, are maintaining publisher loyalty and retention when it comes to their biggest priority: Getting paid.

With stats like these, what can you do to improve publisher satisfaction? And how can ad networks gain a major advantage?

Also Read: 10 Must-Have Features of Enterprise Marketing Automation Platforms

Balancing the “Big Three”

Google, Facebook, and Amazon are synonymous with big brands, big gains, and big competition—especially when it comes to advertiser offerings. It’s no secret that battling these “Big Three” AdTech giants is no easy feat, so how do you succeed in this increasingly demanding market? By keeping your publishers satisfied with service and differentiation.

While payment operations might not be as top-of-mind as audience targets, ad rates, and commission amounts, how a network handles this process is imperative to publisher happiness. And happy publishers equal happy advertisers.

Networks need to be prepared to deliver a richer payment experience that goes beyond ACH, wire transfers, and PayPal. With the Big Three, publishers have an established baseline of expectations when it comes to how they pay, and smaller networks need to find a solution that makes their offerings more desirable.

Build Loyalty by Paying on Time

94.6 % of publishers indicated that being paid on time is important for ensuring loyalty. And networks can use this data to their advantage by offering a better onboarding experience.

In the last 12 months:

27.3% of publishers experienced a payment issue

55% said payment was late

45% said they never even received payment

In many cases, these headaches were created because of inadequate payee onboarding. Smaller networks might be at risk of onboarding publishers using unprotected email exchanges and simple web forms that do not validate the right payment details. We estimate that there are over 26,000 global remittance rules to check for when onboarding payees. From ACH routing numbers to checking for fraud attempts, maintaining information on processing payments can be challenging without an intelligent payee portal.

Even Google, one of the AdTech heavy-hitters, experienced onboarding complications with their AdSense program. In some countries, it was found that issues with AdSense added extra complexity to basic wire transfers—a problem that might have been avoided by streamlining their onboarding processes.

The Future Is Features

In 2019 and beyond, networks will need to offer greater choices when it comes to payments. Not only in currency, method, threshold, and adjust transaction fees, but in communication and features such as early payments.

Let’s break down a few of these financial necessities:

1. Payment Methods

81.5% of publishers indicated that offering multiple payment methods was important for ensuring loyalty.

When networks start out, they may only offer a single electronic payment method, like PayPal. But as the network grows, publishers will begin to request other options. You might find U.S. payees asking for ACH or international payees who want their funds sent via eCheck to avoid converting currency fees.

Additional offerings will add complexity to a network’s operations, but even the Big Three have admitted to needing more than one payment method. No single method is suitable for every situation, and any growing network should want to offer more choices.

2. Communication

Never underestimate the power of communication—especially with payment processing. The simple courtesy of proactively updating payees on payment status is critical for maintaining network loyalty.

92.3% said they wanted to be able to view their payment status and history on their own

Smaller networks might not have an accounting staff that fields these types of requests and questions. So who's going to provide this service? It’s you! Now, on top of your current work-load, you have to answer one of the most important questions of the 21st century, “when will I get paid?”

Given how lean many networks run, doesn’t it make sense to automate communications? By adopting a solution that provides email notifications and a designated payee portal, you might gain back valuable time and reduce your operational overhead.

3. Early Payments

The payment lag between advertisers, DSPs, and agencies is a widespread problem that continues to plague AdTech.

You have advertisers that are pressuring channels, networks, and others to accept net-60 terms. While networks are expected to pay publishers in much shorter increments.

It’s not surprising that 79% of publishers said they would like to get paid earlier. What was surprising was that 36.2 percent indicated they'd be willing to accept a 1 to 3-percent discount in order to receive that earlier payment.

It might be difficult for a network to implement an early payment program to its entire publisher base, but there are precedents for success. And the revenues earned from these programs might help offset other back-office investments.

Out of all of the rich data we uncovered, one thing is clear—publishers and affiliates have a growing number of choices when it comes to the networks they’re working with, even beyond the Big Three. Which means networks need to pay attention to payees’ interests around payment operations.

After all, in the digital frontier, payments are the only true measure of loyalty and performance.

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